ANC race campaign driving SA apart – Pieter Mulder

The ANC is effectively busy ripping the South African community into two separate camps with the way in which the organisation is currently driving their campaign about racism.

Racism, from the side of both black and white, carries the germ that will destroy South Africa and all relationships. That is why all leaders should strongly speak out against it. Leaders largely determine the tone and style of such public debates.

President Mandela proved this in the past. We currently need such leaders from all sides. President Zuma and other leaders are doing the opposite by giving all problems a racial tinge and blaming them on whites.

If the ANC or any other party is busy using racism as a short term election strategy, it is extremely irresponsible and short-sighted because the damage being done to relationships in South Africa in the couple of months in the run up to the elections will take years to repair.

The way in which the ANC currently defines racism is to say that all whites are racists because, according to the ANC, they had been privileged in the past. It is a total oversimplification of the past and of racism. In addition, to label the Afrikaner’s history and leaders whom Afrikaners regard as heroes, as criminals, creates an unbridgeable chasm.

Paul Kruger is one of my heroes for the way in which he fought British colonialism and imperialism. No ANC propaganda will change my view on this. In 2012 in a nationwide competition, Paul Kruger was pointed out by many Afrikaners as the biggest Afrikaner leader ever to have lived.

It has to be accepted that South Africans cannot be forced to view the past through ANC glasses. Unity in diversity provides room for differences. When the Durban International Airport was named after King Shaka, the Freedom Front Plus had for this precise reason not registered its objection or started a debate about his history on human rights – knowing that he was a hero for many Zulu-speaking people.

If we begrudge each other this room, the ANC’s Freedom Charter wording, that the country belongs to black and white, is mere hollow propaganda. If we are serious to bring about a better future for all in South Africa, we cannot continue to punish all whites and to portray all black people as victims.

My contribution as to why I consider Kruger to be one of the greatest Afrikaner leaders can be found here.